I don't think most Americans even cared, there was still a strong isolationist bent, that was only done away with when the Japs attacked.
There are several other critical factors to consider:
“1. A vast majority of Americans considered Japan - not Nazi Germany - to be the main enemy.
2. Perhaps in official Washington and among elites the Soviet Union was considered an ally; but for most Americans the alliance with the USSR was a war time union of convenience.
3. Agreed, the American public would never have consented to a continuation of WWII against the Soviet Union, but Americans would never consent to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
1. I doubt that you can support that. My parents’ generation fought WWII, my grandparents’ WWI, and I grew up with that history to build on, when I served in Germany during the Cold War.
Americans very much believed Germany was our enemy, and the USSR our ally because it was so.
2. Your commentary about “elites” seems to follow the contemporary fad of using that word, but you’ll need to support your written opinion with something to convince me.
3. Americans consented to the Cold War, which meant Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. We didn’t fire a shot. Our forces in Germany were meant ONLY to slow down the Soviet tanks rolling across Poland and Germany, until we could fire the nukes.
The Cold War did NOT start immediately at the end of WWII. It was gradual.
Recall Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex near the end of his term, which begs the question about what role our businesses-military establishment sought to keep tensions high?